Devil's Advocate
by Liz Hollow
Summary: When Lyra is unable to move on after the death of her beloved, Morty, who believes he understands death more than anyone, takes it upon himself to help her: by pretending that he can see the ghost of her deceased husband.
1. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

I never really knew him. In fact, I wasn't sure that I had even met him. All I knew was that one day Lyra was as happy as could be with him, and the next thing I knew, I saw his obituary in the newspaper. The only reason I recognized his picture at all was because Lyra had shown me once, and his name was vaguely familiar, if only because she now shared his surname.

So, was there any reason for me to show up at his wake? Not really. I hadn't even been invited to their wedding. Clearly I wasn't anyone all that important to them, and since I didn't know anything about him, it made no sense for me to go. But the moment I saw that last name in the newspaper—Lyra's last name—I couldn't stop myself.

Except, compared to the other gym leaders, I didn't really know Lyra all that well, either. But she wasn't just some girl who beat me, either. She had taken the role that I believed belonged to me, met the rainbow-hued Pokémon, so I respected her. Despite this, I didn't actually think that we were anything more than acquaintances. Friends would be a bit of a stretch.

Which, of course, gave me less of a reason to attend his wake. Strike one, I didn't know him, and strike two, I didn't really know Lyra. But there wasn't really a strike three to rule out the possibility of going, so I went, as if neither of my first two strikes against me didn't matter. They made these things public for a reason, didn't they?

And, the thing was, I knew death. No one understood it better than I did. Why else would I train ghost-types?

It would be hard for Lyra, and I knew how to cope with these things. My mom died from a long-term illness when I was just twelve, and my dad, unable to bear the pain of living without her, killed himself shortly after. Since I didn't have any siblings, I was left alone, an orphan who attended both of his parents' funerals within a two-month period. I stayed with a friend for a while before going off on my own to train with the Gastly I caught not too long after my parents died.

Yeah, I understood what Lyra was about to go through—what she felt now, what she would feel later. And it was the reason why I always went to the funerals or wakes for people who, even if I didn't know them well, I knew at all.

The day of the wake was gloomy, the perfect setting for a sad occasion. It always seemed too cruel to have a nice day on such a bitter one, when all we were all supposed to feel was grief. It had been sunny—absolutely beautiful, not a cloud in the sky—on the day of my dad's funeral, and everyone came up to me and told me that it couldn't have been a better day.

But there was a better day—a day when I woke up and he was still there, or a day when I walked down the hall from my bedroom to find breakfast already on the table, my parents laughing over the Sunday comics together.

I was happy that Lyra got a crappy day for her husband's wake—because it made every day that he had been alive seem all the brighter.

And the rain fell hard. When I stepped out of the car, tipping the driver a little bit extra for having to drive me in this weather, I looked up at the sky. The sheet of grey above us was not indicative of a storm that would pass soon; rather, it would be a day of continuous tears, the world mourning the death as if these things never happened.

I walked up the pathway towards the house, stepping in the puddles along the way, my suede shoes already soaked. I neglected to bring an umbrella, so by the time I made it inside, my hair was slick and stuck to my forehead, my normally-straight strands of hair curling up around my collar. My suit jacket weighed down on my shoulders, yet another thing to burden me.

"Well, if it isn't the Prince of Death himself."

When I turned around, a little awkwardly since there were too many people here and not quite enough room to move, and saw Whitney, I smiled. It was good to see a familiar face in a space of unfamiliar people, especially when the circumstances were not good. She had always been one of my favorite colleagues, in any case.

"Whitney," I greeted, and she nodded. In her black dress, a little too short for a wake, she really was quite beautiful. She didn't look particularly devastated by the loss, however, considering that her makeup was still perfect.

"So far, from what I can tell," she whispered, walking up to me and hooking her arm around mine, pulling me close to her and continuing her stroll, "most of the people here are Lyra's friends. Apparently her husband didn't have a very large group of friends—or possibly any. But she still hasn't even come down from upstairs yet, so everyone is just sort of walking around and eating the hors d'oeuvres." As if to prove this, she held up her plate and shoved a deviled egg into her mouth.

"Has anyone checked on her?" I wondered, thoughts of my father coming through the mist of my mind.

But I didn't need an answer to my question. The room became momentarily louder, and Whitney spun me around to face the entrance. Lyra, not quite as I remembered her, had finally made her appearance. No amount of makeup could hide the fact that she had been crying, but the mystery would remain how long she had been. Her eyes, swollen and red, were still watering even now, but she forced a smile as she walked into the room.

"Thanks for coming, everyone," she said, and she shook hands with everyone who rushed to her side. Whitney rolled her eyes beside me, but even she eventually left my side to go give Lyra her condolences.

I finally realized my third strike when Lyra had fought her way across the room, so scarred that she might as well be a veteran of war, and stopped in front of me. She stared at me for a moment, the smile that she had feigned for everyone else turned slowly into a grimace, before she burst into tears again. There were people who were immediately there for her, pulling her away from the crowd and shooting me dirty looks, and it was surprisingly painful that I couldn't be one of them, since I knew what that should mean.

But, in Whitney's words, I was the Prince of Death. Of course she would cry at the sight of me.

"Nice." Whitney shoved another deviled egg into her mouth as she found her way back over to me, dumping the plate on a side table with some other abandoned hors d'oeuvres. "So, Mr. Ghost-type man, you ever actually see any ghosts? Have you seen this guy walking around yet tonight? Or is that insensitive of me to say?"

It was indeed insensitive, but I didn't say anything. I had never seen a ghost in my life—at least, not a human ghost. I always thought that I might, considering the first Pokémon I ever caught was a ghost-type, but it never happened. Death, I determined, was final. There was only so much waiting you could do for the ones you loved to return.

"I don't even know what he really looks like. All I saw was the picture in the obituary," I settled on saying, and Whitney grinned.

"It's an open casket. Go find out," she said, pushing me forward.

I let her guide me for awhile, maneuvering me around the people in the crowd, until she stopped in front of the casket at the head of the room. There was a line to look, and beside the casket, there was a guestbook. We had one at my mom's funeral, which my dad kept in his room, but I hadn't seen my dad's guestbook since the day of his funeral.

Whitney and I stood quietly in line, watching as everyone ahead of us walked past the casket and nodded, a couple of people putting flowers on his chest. When it was our turn to finally go up, I let Whitney go up first, and she bowed her head in respect. I was pretty sure that it was the first sign of respect she had shown since arriving.

She got out of the way as I walked up, and I looked down at the man in the casket. The only consolation in death, I found, was that there was so much peace about it—at least when it was like this. The man in the casket was in an everlasting slumber, the only hint that he wouldn't wake up the lack of rise in his chest. His skin, though I imagined cool, had the slightest tan, his cheeks slightly pink from blush. And his bright red hair was combed perfect, styled as if about to head out for the night.

"Hey, Morty, do you remember his name?" Whitney hissed from where she stood in front of the guest book.

I took one last look at Lyra's husband, the man she married only months ago. According to the obituary, he died unexpectedly because of a brain tumor that had gone unnoticed, but he appeared so healthy now. It was a strange façade, one that almost made me think he could come back. My dad, on the other hand, couldn't even have an open casket because of the damage he had done to his own body.

"Silver," I said, stepping down from the slightly-raised platform in front of the casket and standing behind Whitney as she scribbled something in the book. She held the pen out to me when she finished, but I shook my head. I didn't really have anything to say.

Glancing around at the crowd of people, only a couple who looked visibly upset, I wondered if coming really had been a mistake. I was selfish in my intentions of attending—thought that I could help Lyra during this painful time because I understood what death was. But, really, I only hurt her even more.

"I think I'm going to head home," I told Whitney, and her gaze, which had been wandering around the room and clearly scrutinizing others, shot to mine.

"You've only been here for, like, fifteen minutes. And have you even tried those deviled eggs?" she protested, and I smiled, holding my hand out towards her. She rolled her eyes, shaking my hand with three quick pumps. "All right. Get home safely. I can only wear black so many times in one week, got it?"

"Bye, Whitney."

I turned around, ready to head out, but froze when I noticed Lyra in front of me. I thought for a moment that it was a mistake, and almost turned around again, but she held out both of her hands to stop me. Her eye were even sadder than before, tears brimming, but she didn't burst out again. Instead, she swallowed and nodded.

"I'm sorry for earlier, Morty," she said, and when I opened my mouth to protest, she shook her head. "Don't. It's nothing personal. I've just…" She paused, twirling a strand of brown hair around her finger. "Thank you for coming to show your respects. I would appreciate it if you signed the guestbook before you left."

She didn't say anything else before continuing her cycle around the room, shaking hands with whoever else hadn't already, and I stood still for a moment.

"Wow," Whitney finally breathed behind me, and I glanced over at her. "Poor girl. It's too bad you didn't see his ghost. At least you'd be able to tell her he's okay then."

I grimaced, brushing past her and heading back over to the guestbook. The line had grown, but I stood patiently and waited, trying to think of whatever I could say to make her feel better. I wasn't sure there was anything, but I kept thinking until I was back at the book.

The guestbook was full of various scrawls, thoughts of Lyra being held in prayers and wishes of good fortune upon her in this time of need. The words were kind, peaceful, but I knew it would be awhile before Lyra would be composed enough to read them. I had never actually read what people said about my mom, despite the fact that my dad kept it in the house while he was still alive.

But someday, maybe, Lyra would be happy enough again to read what these people had to say. And maybe, way in the back, she would find mine.

_I'll watch over him_, I wrote, as if I really could, in hope that it was enough to convince her that he was okay.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Sorry that the chapter is kind of short, but maybe it just feels that way because _Across the Sun_ was so long. And why I keep writing in the POV of guys, I have no idea. I clearly hate myself.

Anyway… here it is. I'm not sure how quickly I'll be able to do updates because I'm about to start school again. But I'll try my best.

Until next time.


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

"All right, that's enough for today, sir."

I opened my eyes, letting myself fall back against the floor. As relaxing as meditation was supposed to be, and as much as I needed more training, I didn't particularly enjoy it. Contrary to its purpose, it stressed me out more than anything—I couldn't, even after all this time, see anything. Thoughts swam through my mind despite my body's ease, and there was nothing I could do to shut them out. And none of them were the ones I wanted.

I hadn't seen anything for a long time. Years ago, I had seen a shadow of Lyra meeting Ho-oh, somewhere in my dreams, but that time had long passed. I no longer knew the future, not even the slightly glimmer of something before me. Déjà vu was not nearly as present as it had once been, only in places I knew I had never been.

A hand lowered in front of my face, and I stared at it for a few moments, wiping the sweat that shouldn't have been there from my forehead before grabbing it. "Excellent work today, sir," the owner of the hand said, and I rolled my eyes. "You truly seemed to be at peace. Were you able to see anything?"

"No," I told the kid, a boy several years my junior with dark hair that was way too messy and a gaze that was way too hard. He was a good person, though, if not a little like a puppy. It was an unfortunate coincidence that his name was Shiba, and I wondered if his parents actually thought that through.

"I'm sure you'll have luck as you practice more," he assured me excitedly, bouncing as he pumped his fist.

His optimism wasn't the least bit contagious, but I forced a smile at the teenager. "Thank you, Shiba."

It was truly amazing. Seventeen years old, and he still viewed the world as a beautiful place. Clearly he had not yet been corrupted. Or, at least, he hadn't seen the real world. It wasn't nearly as good as he thought it might be.

He asked to train under me just a month or so ago, but he was already one of the most promising trainers I had ever met, which was a shock considering his overly-polite demeanor. In fact, he had defeated me with his Froslass alone, and although I wasn't using my strongest Pokémon—like the Gengar that had evolved from the Gastly I caught after my parents' deaths—that was still quite a feat. And, true to form, he apologized over and over for being too forceful and proceeded to lament over the fact that his Pokémon would never respect him like mine respected me.

Except that was all Froslass had for him: respect. She obeyed his orders without so much as a doubt about his strategy, which was half the reason the combination worked so well. At least, that was what I saw.

And I assured him that this was true, offering him the head trainer position at the gym only two weeks after he first approached me about training. Modest as always, he shot down my offer three times, sure that it was either a mistake or that there had to be someone better than him. My previous head trainer, who left the gym to challenge the Elite Four just before Shiba arrived, had to come down and speak with him, and eventually Shiba agreed to take the position. It was a slightly annoying process, but I needed him.

He had been helping me with my meditation every day since becoming my head trainer, something that hadn't exactly been in his job description, but he was more than willing to help. Nothing had been going the way I wanted, of course, but Shiba never asked questions. That was half the reason I liked having him around, anyway.

"Hey, what's today, Shiba?" I asked, and he hurriedly walked over to my desk and began flipping through papers to find my planner hidden somewhere in that mess. I laughed, waving a hand at him. "Just the date. I'm not looking for anything else. You're not my secretary, you know. You're a friend."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, sir," he said, bowing, and I rolled my eyes once more. I had told him over and over not to call me "sir", and to lay off the bowing, but it was obviously going to take some serious effort to stop that. "Today is the 26th."

The 26th. That meant that tomorrow would be two months since Lyra's husband's funeral. I had been meaning to check on her just a little, just make sure that she was doing all right, but I hadn't had much time, among other reasons. There was an increase in challengers at the gym, which wasn't that unusual since it was summer now, but between my training and challenges, there wasn't a lot of time for anything else.

But tomorrow was a big day in my experience. It had been two months after my mom's death that my dad killed himself, after all. Grief didn't just go away.

"I'm going out of town tomorrow," I told Shiba, and I half-expected him to open up my planner and clear all other plans I had. "You have my permission to accept all challenges at the gym as interim leader for the day."

"But—but, but… Sir, are you sure it's a good idea to leave the gym in my hands? I've only been here for a month. Not that I'm questioning your judgment, but… I can't even compare to you, so I don't want to let you down…" Shiba protested, moving around my desk and pacing back and forth as he sought every excuse not to agree. It was a nervous habit, I had discovered. "I'm sure there are trainers better suited to stand in for you, sir."

"Shiba. My name is Morty, not 'sir'. And you are the most talented trainer at the gym. Give yourself a little more credit, will you?" I smiled, and Shiba avoided my gaze. "Don't give out badges too easily, but don't go too hard on challengers either. You have to observe them. Now…" I wiped my forehead clear of the thin layer of sweat from my meditation. "Why don't you go home? You've been here long enough. It's a Friday night, and I'm sure you have plans with your other friends. Go hang out."

"Oh, no, sir—I mean, Morty. I prefer watching TV shows on my laptop during the weekend." He paused, running a hand through his hair. "That probably sounds weird. I just don't have time to catch up on my shows during the week," he explained, and I stifled a laugh. Of course. It was sometimes hard to tell if he was really a seventeen-year-old boy of an eighty-seven-year-old man. His tastes were probably the same.

I smacked him once on the shoulder, content if he was. "You have a good night then. See you on Sunday, Shiba."

He nodded, waving as he passed through the doorway. "Bye."

I watched him leave the gym, the last trainer left, and gathered my stuff up before locking up shop. My deadline had come… and I couldn't produce any results. I was just going to have to go tomorrow without it. At the very least, I just needed to make sure she was okay.

Lyra hadn't spoken to me since the funeral, but it wasn't just because I was, according to Whitney, the Prince of Death. She didn't speak to many people these days, or so the other gym leaders said. Clair had heard from her once, and Jasmine had checked on her a couple of times. None of the male gym leaders had heard anything, but that wasn't much of a surprise.

Of course, no one really mentioned her anymore. All of that had been a few weeks ago. We moved on.

But I knew from experience that after that first month—that first anniversary of death—no one really put in as much effort. People would check on me all the time, ask me how I was doing, and then they would move on when they decided it was time for me to do so, too. Maybe if I had made more of an effort to help my dad, he wouldn't have died, too.

Lyras's case was a little different. Her husband just died, after all. Being male, I couldn't just jump into things and try to help her immediately. She would take it the wrong way, no matter how innocuous my intentions were—and they were just that. So, no matter what, tomorrow was the day.

I walked home and got to work, putting a tray of cookies in the oven. I could cook, but I wasn't the best baker in the world—it was a small personal victory for me when I pulled them out of the oven and they weren't burnt. My Gengar, who loved cookies, had snatched a couple while I was letting them cool and getting ready for bed, but two dozen minus two was still twenty-two cookies.

Really, the cookies were a formality to make up for the fact that I was a failure. She wasn't even going to eat them, I knew.

There was a car waiting for me when I woke up in the morning, one that I scheduled weeks ago when I decided that this trip was necessary. I got ready and grabbed my bag of cookies, walking out my front door and hopping into the back seat. There was no guarantee that she was home, but if I knew death as I thought I did, she would be.

I stood outside her door when I got to her house, and it looked relatively the same as it did the day of the wake. Now, though, the sun was shining, a happier world than two months ago on the outside. But I wasn't surprised. A smile on the outside was easy—it looked dark inside her house, and it was probably darkest inside her.

I knocked hard on the door, waiting patiently in the silence until she opened the door. The door opened just a crack at first, the sliver of her face peeking through the darkness behind it. After a moment of staring, she opened the door all the way up, leaning against the door frame and smiling at me. I knew it.

"Morty. Isn't this a surprise? Nice to see you," she said.

It wasn't nice. She could easily mask her pain with a smile, but the pain behind her gaze wasn't at all opaque. How long had she been alone in this house? My dad had to take care of me, the grim reminder of everything my mom left behind, but at least I was alive. Every reminder of Silver in that house was never alive to begin with.

"I brought cookies," I told her, as if this explained my sudden arrival on her stoop. As if to prove this, I held up the bag. She took it from me without any questions, cradling the bag like a baby in her arms. "I'm just… I wanted to ask you to… go to lunch with me. It's been a long time since we've talked."

She stepped down onto the stoop with me, and I took in everything about her. I was used to the teenager who I met in the Burnt Tower all those years ago with the pigtails and giant hat that resembled a marshmallow. But now she looked like an adult, with her hair worn down and her eyes surrounded by circles despite her attempts to cover them with makeup. There was some consolation in the fact that she was wearing a coral-colored dress instead of black.

"It has," she agreed, but that wasn't an acceptance of my proposal. "Actually, I already have plans for today."

"Oh." I smiled, but she didn't smile back. "It was rude of me to show up unexpectedly, anyway. We can talk another time."

Lyra nodded, and I turned to walk down the steps. As soon as I dropped down a step, though, her arm shot out, and she clung to my wrist. Her other arm had dropped to her side, her fingers curled too tightly around the bag of cookies. I looked up at her, pain etched so deeply in her stress lines. She was fighting with herself.

"I signed up several months ago for this dance-a-thon thing with Silver," she told me, her voice shaking. "It's for my favorite charity, so I thought that I would still go… but it's a ballroom dancing dance-a-thon, so it would look weird if I went alone." She hesitated, and I stepped back up to the top of her stoop. "Your timing is impeccable, Morty."

"You want me to go with you?" I asked, and she bit her lip, dropping her hand from my wrist.

"Don't feel like you have an obligation. I know you probably just came over to check on me. People have stopped coming around lately, though, and it's gotten a bit lonely—I just really need to get out of this damn house." She glanced back at it with sad eyes, perhaps a bit haunted by something there. "I was planning on going alone, but if you want to come, you can."

No, she was stronger than I gave her credit for… sure, she was hurting, but who wouldn't be after losing his or her spouse? But she was getting out of her house, moving forward even if she couldn't move on, which was more than I had ever seen from death before. I didn't give her quite enough credit.

Or so I thought until she broke down, a quiet sob breaking from her like it had been building up for days. She covered the side of her face with a hand, the tears dropping in quick succession from her chin. It wasn't a loud cry—but a silent one filled with all the pain in the world. She wasn't strong after all… she was just better at masking her pain.

"Damn it," she hissed, breathing in deeply and lowering her hand. "I thought I could do this without crying."

"Hey, hey, don't be like that," I countered, and she looked at me through a watery veil. "There's nothing wrong with crying. If it helps you feel better, do it."

Lyra shook her head, the hint of a mocking smile on her lips. "It doesn't help me feel better. It makes me remember that I miss him." She breathed in deeply again, squeezing her hand even more tightly around the cookies. "Hey… can I ask you about something? At the wake… when I asked you to sign the guestbook, did you do it?"

How long had it taken her to finally open up that guestbook? Did she, I wondered, make it all the way to mine, or had she begun to read them without being able to continue? How many could she truly read? How many pages had she soaked through with her tears? Death was really far too hard for the living.

"Yeah."

She nodded and stared off beyond me, as if connecting something in her mind. And I had a feeling that I knew exactly what she was figuring out—something she knew all along, but she questioned the meaning over and over.

I said I'd watch over him, after all.

"They call you the Prince of Death…" she said slowly. I hadn't realized this had really become my nickname, but if it was one I couldn't avoid, that was something I could make mine. "This could be a stupid question… but can you see them? People who have died? And… more importantly… can you see Silver?"

I tried my best to see the dead. I thought I could reach that point of vision by meditating—pushed myself to do it, even—but I hadn't been able to by today. Without this ability, was I really any use to Lyra? I was the Prince of Death, sure, but I was about as in tune with the dead as any normal person. How the hell was I supposed to make her feel better?

And I wasn't sure why I felt so obligated to help her. People died every day in every part of the world in every hour. But it had been so long since someone I knew, even if I didn't know her well, lost someone so close. Death happened—but Lyra lost her husband. And my dad lost his wife. It was a different sort of loss.

"Yes," I told her, convinced that if I lied now, it would eventually become the truth.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Many apologies for taking forever to update. Hope you still enjoy this.

I'm pretty sure Shiba is, like… my spirit character.


End file.
